Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God

"In this book Greta Christina tackles the subject of death with the insight of a philosopher and the relaxed candor of a friend — that really cool, intelligent friend who understands and cares."
-David Niose, author of Fighting Back the Right: Reclaiming America from the Attack on Reason

Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God by Greta Christina -- available now!

Coming Out Atheist

“"Witty, wise, helpful, and humane, this clear and engaging book is most timely.”
-Phil Zuckerman, Ph.D., author of Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion

Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why by Greta Christina -- available now in ebook, print, and audiobook!

I Support Atheism Plus!

Atheists plus we care about social justice.
Atheists plus we support women’s rights.
Atheists plus we protest racism.
Atheists plus we fight homophobia and transphobia.
Atheists plus we use critical thinking and skepticism.

In between checking your email and the latest updates on your Facebook wall, can you spare a few clicks? Foundation Beyond Belief, Secular Student Alliance, and Camp Quest need your votes to earn up to $450,000 combined in the Chase Community Giving contest! They’re all 501(c)(3) non-profits, so a little money never hurt—and you know it’s not going to pay for increasing the size of their yacht fleets.

The Chase Community Giving program awards funding to charities based on votes from Facebook users and Chase customers, and there are lots of grants available.
The first place winner gets $250K, next 10 get $100K, the next 35 get $50K, and the next 50 get $20K.

As of September 10th, Day 5 of the contest, SSA has almost 900 votes, FBB has about 580, and Camp Quest has about 230. SSA was ranked 34th as of this morning (a $50K grant) but they have been slipping down since the start and will drop to only a $20K grant at 36th place if we don’t do something.

Right now the top ranked organization in the contest has 5500 votes total, and 11th place has about 1000 more votes than SSA collected. Oh, math! The point is, every single vote counts! We need every vote, and we need you to share this with your friends and get them to vote!

On Facebook, you can get two votes automatically that have to be used on different charities, and you can earn a third vote that can be doubled up or used on a third charity if you share a link on your wall and someone clicks on it. Here’s the Facebook event with all the voting links that you can use to RSVP and let your friends online know about the contest.

To go directly to the Chase giving pages on Facebook and vote, here are the links:

Vote for Foundation Beyond Belief : Foundation Beyond Belief provides a venue for humanists to put their values into actions by supporting efforts to improve this world and this life, and to focus, encourage and demonstrate humanist values such as generosity, compassion, mutual care and responsibility.

Vote for Secular Student Alliance: The Secular Student Alliance organizes, unites, educates, and serves students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human-based ethics.

Vote for Camp Quest: Camp Quest provides an educational adventure for kids 8-17 years old that is shaped by fun, friends and freethought, featuring science, natural wonder and humanist values.

Chase customers get two additional votes in addition to the Facebook votes. That means one person can have up to 5 votes to spend on three or more charities.

Comments

Darn, after all that math I guess I got confused. I messed up one number – SSA doesn’t drop down to a $20K grant until they get lower than #46. And actually, as of this evening Foundation Beyond Belief is within about 10 places of getting bumped up to the $50K level from the $20K level.

We need to keep up the pace to maintain our positions, and we need to reach lots more people to keep moving up in the rankings! Please vote and share this with your freethinking and atheist friends! Thanks – Noelle

Respectfully, Greta: the sole purpose of Facebook apps is to trick the user into “voluntarily” giving up any and all privacy and handing their user data, friends list, browsing history and all email addresses and other data stored on the Facebook servers to third parties for commercial use, including the right to sell all that data to whoever is willing to pay their price. I have looked into writing FB games a few years ago, and I was appalled at what the API allowed.

No matter how noble the cause, I will not ever consent to Facebook apps. I will, however, make a donation to the organizations in question.

I’m with Gregory in Seattle. I don’t allow any FB apps because I’m not willing to let “them” have access to all my info etc. It’s a lovely idea and I hope the groups get the money, and I’ll make a donation, but not through Facebook.

Trackbacks

[…] come up with this scheme to distribute, so who are we but poor peons to play the game. Greta Christina has the details. The bottom line, though, is that you each have TWO votes through your Facebook account (if you […]